


Maleficent and Sleeping Beauty

by MysticaSmith



Category: Maleficent (2014), Maleficent - Fandom, Once Upon a Time (TV), Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Other, film analysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 20:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8637454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysticaSmith/pseuds/MysticaSmith
Summary: To wrap it all up, I was delighted by the film, and would enjoy watching more like it. Here’s to more women directing and producing, and a special thank you to Ms. Jolie for creating a wonderful fantasy.





	

November 22, 2016  
The Art of Film

Maleficent  
A Highly Partial Review 

Released in 2014, the film stars Angelina Jolie as the wronged dark fairy Maleficent, Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora, and Sharlto Copley as King Stephan. All of my daughters enjoyed the film. I loved it on three different levels, and it has become one of my fantasy favorites, along with The Last Unicorn and Lord of the Rings. The three levels are the basic story, metaphors and allusions, in this case consent issues, and the fanfiction world.   
The fanfiction following is a whole separate audience, with frequent homosexual leanings. Fanfiction sites are all over the internet, and movie makers know this, so the subtext appeals to them. They don’t make an overtly homosexual film, they make what is ostensibly a proper, heterosexual romance which with a few minor changes would transform into a gay love affair. Disney excels at this, beginning with Frozen. Just watch the movie with the sound off and viola, a lesbian romance! This way, they can satisfy both audiences while still maintaining plausible deniability. This is a process unattractively referred to as queer baiting, but I understand that money moves the industry and alienating the majority of viewers would be financially inadvisable. Did Maleficent and Aurora get married at the end? Hot damn! Then oops, that’s cleared up. With fuzzy listening, lesbians were able to not hear a few words and not only enjoy it thoroughly, but get the ending they wanted.   
Maleficent is an interesting addition to the mass mythology of the age. I’m quite fond of dark fairies, and their cousins the night elves. Not much has been done from their perspectives. Patriarchal father-knows-best tropes have formed the bedrock of most of the previous centuries’ work. As a little kid, I wasn’t frightened at all of Maleficent, and wondered what her problem was, because she obviously had some sort of long simmering resentment towards the three fairies or the royals. Clearly, something was amiss. She’s also the only attractive, human-sized fairy. Then, we see where she lives, in a tumbledown old castle filled with dirty, ill-behaved little devils. Was that some 1950’s aside towards single mothers? That’s what I always got from it, even as a child. In the newer movie, the magical world has a wide variety of fey creatures, and the dark twist comes because of human action.   
From an adventure perspective this movie held up nicely, and as a gamer I want to see consistency in spell casting abilities and use, along with some sense of real danger for the characters. The story was well put together with something relevant to say. There were some parts of the movie that I still don’t quite place, like the stone fences that fly apart. Perhaps they are just symbolic, formalistic elements and I’m trying too hard to reinterpret them into something else, like the surrealist imagery just before Aurora fulfills the curse and pricks her finger on the spindle.   
Maybe it’s just the old school D&D gamer in me, but I want logical cohesion to the magical system. If Maleficent can transform others, why doesn’t she just transform herself some wings back? The fairies’ aversion to iron is folkloric, and was beautifully used by Peter Beagle in the Last Unicorn. Iron bars keep the harpy and the unicorn contained, nullifying their magical powers in an inverse radius. It doesn’t seem to burn them the way it does Maleficent, but the ratio is the same. The iron net is genius. Not so much how King Stephan then attacks her with iron chains, and I was a bit surprised. What are we saying with those chains, anyway? Chains are a restraint, not an offensive weapon. Are they going to string her up? And… do what? In most fantasy medieval settings, all would not go well for the fairy. When he throws her, that’s another battle flaw, as it would only give her the opportunity to escape. And why can’t anybody hit anything? Can’t anyone in the king’s employ shoot straight? And doesn’t he have a battle language that he could have used to send a silent message to his men to shoot her in the back while she’s talking and casting spells? Some people have criticized the fact that in the cartoon Maleficent turns into a dragon, while in the live action version she turns her servant Diaval into a dragon. Tactically, this is great move, so they can both fight.   
Singing and music were the best parts of the cartoon that didn’t make it into live action, which is fine. Scenery was lovely in both movies, and the feminist slant was a refreshing change from the usual slow-witted but true-hearted princess waiting around for a man. The heroine was jilted badly by one, in the nicely alluded stealing of her wings as a stand in for a date rape scene. It also provides an analogy for little kids who are watching this. They understand stolen flight without going into too much detail. The returning of Maleficent’s wings near the end of the film is a lovely metaphor, but a tactical and magical inconsistency. Speaking of wings, they must have chosen feathered, bird-like wings instead of bat wings to reduce Maleficent’s resemblance to a demoness. I think they should have downplayed the horns, but, personal preference. I am rather fond of a variety of succubi and demonesses, and don’t have a wing preference one way or the other.   
The live action version has a much livelier role for Aurora, but she doesn’t really get to do much but sort of be cursed to be happy all the time, or at least to always find the best in everything. Prince Philip’s character is vastly improved. Instead of a hothead, he’s gracious and polite, like a prince should be. In the cartoon he’s also not too bright, and makes his situation worse by acting like he’s going to hit Maleficent instead of being wily and talking his way out of the situation. The boy’s as bright and sharp as a marble, leaving us with the impression that the whole thing was a ruse by the three older fairies to rid themselves of Maleficent, as they get the prince to kill her for them.  
Stephan’s character darkens as the film progresses, as does the general tone and coloration. Greed and guilt change him from a kid to a psychotic despot. The first thing he does upon meeting Aurora for the first time in sixteen years is remark how she looks like her mother, and then locks her up in her room while he plots revenge. The transformation of the crow-like familiar Diablo into the character Diaval was an unexpected and delightful surprise. The relationship between Maleficent and Diaval seems a little problematic to me, as our raven friend seems to be denied the choices that the film is about, but he does self-proclaim to be her servant as a thank you for saving his life. Diaval also has one of my favorite lines in the whole movie. When Maleficent first turns him into a human, he says “What have you done to my beautiful self?” Absolutely delightful.  
What exactly are Maleficent’s powers? What are her limits? She never seems to get hit and has to be surrounded with iron to be overpowered, so a special defense power of some sort? Only magical weapons can hit? How about magic resistance? Given, the average moviegoer doesn’t care about these details, but gamers and writers are wily and do notice plot holes, loopholes, and what other powers magic items might have, even if for no other reason than that they wish to steal them. Actually, that is the reason. It’s tough to steal things that don’t work right, or at least reduces motivation.  
I also liked the actress/producer combination. It’s a great advantage for an actress to be able to pick and choose what gets used and what for. Angelina Jolie was perfect in her portrayal of the resentful and vengeful Maleficent. In my own limited film experience, I have noticed that things are from an almost universally male perspective. A male perspective isn’t a bad thing, it’s just we’ve currently got quite enough of it. From a writer’s or an actress’ vantage point, there’s not a lot of control over the final product. If they choose to use footage that’s not terribly flattering, or move the plot along with clunks and clops, there it is. The pervasive lack of strong female characters in run-of-the-mill television and movies is noticeable, like antimatter. There’s a giant black hole where it should be balancing out the more masculine point of view. Strength is not necessarily physical, and it is certainly not enhanced by rudeness. The writers start with a male character and then just change the pronoun and dress her up in uncomfortable looking magical underwear.   
The actions of the pixies are inexplicable except as a retrofit from the cartoon. Are the three fairies traitors or just unsympathetic jerks? Why do they side with Stephan against Maleficent when he did something so cruel as to cut off her wings? They are clearly incompetent, and it takes Maleficent all of an afternoon to find out where they are hiding with the baby princess. By the wording of her own curse, Maleficent starts to feel protective and loving towards the princess, protecting her repeatedly from certain death. Due to the wording of her own curse, she develops an affection and finally love for Aurora. Again as per the curse, her remorseful, heartbroken kiss of goodbye qualifies to break the sleeping death spell. Very nicely done!  
If you watch the cartoon Sleeping Beauty while lawyering the wording of the curse, it is easy to circumvent if the three granny fairies are smart at all. But apparently they’re either senile or evil, because Merriweather might have said that the princess could avoid this terrible fate by always wearing shoes or drinking peppermint tea. Instead she threw this true love thing in there when they could have just sacrificed a goat and been done with it. But no. The grannies ABDUCT the baby by convincing two humans that letting them take their baby, which fairies had cursed in the first place, away. They lie to the princess about everything, and by keeping her away from everyone, make it nearly impossible for anyone to know and thus love her. They lie to her, but they immediately reveal themselves and then aid the prince with their magic. Who are they working for? And they certainly don’t succeed in protecting the princess. Her ignorance is no gift, and she spends half the film asleep while the main action occurs without her. In the recent movie, at least the kiss makes sense. Maleficent chooses that particular curse because of Stephan’s earlier lies about true love. What woman hasn’t heard that? Even if true love and kissing were a part of it, the king and queen could have just kissed their daughter themselves after she pricked her finger. No lasting damage, the disgruntled dark fairy’s point is made, everyone moves on. But the three fairies proceed to inflame matters even further, and convince the king and queen to give them the baby; the child they have just discovered might die at sixteen, to be reared in seclusion by these same fairies. Perhaps this is an intentional allusion to the folklore of fairies stealing babies, or perhaps not. Either way, the princess is raised in ignorance; oblivious to all of this. Why?  
The answer to this perplexing question is perhaps unintentionally answered by the very appearance of the cartoon appearance of Maleficent. She’s a goth lesbian dream girl. Look at her hands, lips, and um… horns. That staff of hers is an S&M dream dildo, and a rather jaded afficionado’s version, too. Clearly, this is the last person the king and queen want their daughter associating with, and the three obesity fairies are visibly anguished by her appearance. What more terrible thing could occur than for the young princess to take up with such a person! She’d never marry the prince they picked out for her if she has hobbies like that! No, no no!!!! I’m not sure if any of this existed consciously in the minds of the artists and creators of the 1950’s, but they were also busy killing and imprisoning homosexuals, so the Lesbian Fairy was certainly threatening, even if only subconsciously. Or perhaps one of the artists had a magnificent sense of humor. At any rate, everything is a product of its time. Perhaps audiences of the 50’s didn’t notice it, or just kids weren’t expected to pick up on things like that. With three television stations and public broadcasting, parents had to watch kids’ shows right along with them, and so some adult humor was snuck into things like Sesame Street, where for the letter L we have lots of lashes where you least like ‘em, and a singing hen who even when she’s down is still Grade A.   
For many viewers separating out the 1959 animated, musical version of Sleeping Beauty from the 2014 live action was a sticky wicket. This makes sense, and it seems to have been a widespread hurdle that lots of people couldn’t quite get over. They were expecting a literal replay, and they were upset that it wasn’t what they were anticipating. I heard one woman in the theater shout, “The witch?” when Maleficent’s kiss awakens Aurora, and she wasn’t the only one. I thought it was a clever twist, and did away with the love at first sight trope. I liked it better without any hint of the 1950’s in it, but we don’t all have to like the same things, and everything is a product of its time. The cartoon version, which has gorgeous artwork and was a technological wonder for its’ day, embodies some cringe-worthy stereotypes.   
The female archetypes most often used in films are the femme fatale, the princess, and other purely decorative individuals. Older women are either bumbling nincompoops or sinister witches. Neither stereotype is flattering. As visually stunning and musically delightful the cartoon may be, it’s radioactive with sexism. That might be reading too much into a cartoon made over sixty years ago, but stories, folklore, history, and myths change over time, reflecting our culture as through a distant mirror. These stories exist because we like them, and keep retelling them. The less popular stories are forgotten over time. The earliest Cinderella story is Egyptian, from the first century BC. A slave girl is friends with animals and a falcon drops one of her slippers onto the Pharoah’s lap, and of course he goes looking for the girl with the matching slipper, because it was a sign from the god Horus. When he finds her, he makes her his queen.   
Sleeping Beauty myths from several hundred years ago are more graphic, the French, German, and Slavic folk tales are all full of rape and monsters everywhere. In The Sun, The Moon, and Talia, a married king finds a girl asleep and can’t wake her up, so he rapes her. This happens repeatedly, and she bears him two children while asleep, one of whom wakes her up by sucking the splinter out of her finger. When the queen finds out about all of this and is angry, she’s called an ogress, and after a round of threatening to eat people, she is killed. Clearly, the king valued his docile young thing more than his older wife, and has the authority to choose. The current fascination with horror and rape culture in general should give us a great pause for thought. Is that what represents this era?   
There is certainly a dearth of positive portrayals of older women. They are moms, grandmas, wives, and the perfect villain, an ex-wife. Youth is in vogue at the moment, the visible signs of aging hidden. At this writing, extreme thinness is also in fashion, and has been since the 1960’s, despite the fact that the general population is overweight. The ideal seems to recall some wispy, blissful, preadolescent state of playful androgyny. Interestingly enough, superheroes are never willowy, they’re either muscular males with physiques that seem to defy physics, or girls that act like men and wear uncomfortable, magical metal underwear. The magical plusses on that stuff must be enormous to not even want to wear pants, and some of it appears to stand up by itself. What a joy it was to see Maleficent, with both lead actresses in beautiful, non-revealing gowns. Happily, absolutely no T&A. The jewelry on Maleficent’s horns was a nice touch that I’ve added into my fantasy and gaming characters. These days, even Disney shows can lean a little to the risqué. I quite enjoy The Cleavage Show, also known as Once Upon a Time, but the very obvious chink in the Evil Queen’s magical gown of protection is her plunging neckline, conveniently exposing her heart and chest to attack. Fashionable and looking fab perhaps, but not combat ready.   
Speaking of the Cleavage Show, Maleficent as played by Kristin Bauer has a magical, uplifting dress and bra. When Snow White’s stepmother, the Evil Queen Regina, played by Lana Parrilla, visits Maleficent, they get very close when they speak, much closer than an ordinary conversational distance, into the kisses that don’t happen. If the intent is to imply a relationship, the audience certainly picks up on the vibe. While I enjoyed it the unpleasant implication is that only evil characters do that. Good people are heterosexual, and no evil homo is deserving of a happy ending until they renounce such habits. They do the same thing with Regina and Emma, and an entire wing of fanfiction called SwanQueen has grown out of it. The show baits lesbians with the way the characters behave and talk about “their son,” as if they were a couple, and they go everywhere together. Disney could take that last courageous step, but they get squirrely and don’t. The chance for bravery having safely come and gone, they can retain plausible deniability. Happily ever after is defined as being in a monogamous heterosexual relationship. Nothing else.   
To wrap it all up, I was delighted by the film, and would enjoy watching more like it. Here’s to more women directing and producing, and a special thank you to Ms. Jolie for creating a wonderful fantasy.


End file.
